


Threadbare

by Leyenn



Series: Dreams of Honest Horn [3]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dubious Consent, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e03 The Naked Now, F/M, Imzadi, Intoxication, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, oh my god so canon compliant it's insane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:09:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: The Naked Now.Near death is to be expected in Starfleet: a ship full of intoxicated crew in her head, on the other hand.





	Threadbare

**Author's Note:**

> This is, as tagged, so canon compliant it's insane, but I draw the line at 'Bill'.

Tasha's hands are clammy and hot as they press the silk back into hers. It's not the only thing that alerts her that this thing is spreading, but later that's almost her clearest memory of the next twelve hours.

It starts with a tickling feeling inside her head, like something has gotten under her mental shields and is brushing through her thoughts. It makes her think of feathers stroking across her skin - a wilful thought that refuses to go away once it's there, conjuring heat between her thighs and memories in the back of her mind…

She has work to do. She should go to sickbay, try and help La Forge. Go the bridge and help the Captain understand what's going on in the minds of his crew, how this is affecting… people. All around her…

The realisation that she should never have left her quarters comes much too late. She wonders, hazily, if a capacity to hold one's drink has anything to do with how quickly this other intoxication takes hold, because she's never been good at that and it only feels like a moment ago that Tasha-

_Tasha -_

_Pleasure_ , hot and carnal, enough to make her grab the closest bulkhead for balance and bite her lip to stifle the moan that comes to life on her tongue. It's so strong that for an instant it's like she's there - her own head tilted back in a breathless gasp, her own thighs gripped by large, strong hands and trembling around thrusting hips - 

It's like a dam breaking, a shatter of roaring _feeling_ and her shields fold under the weight and suddenly everywhere she turns is a hall of mirrors, all pure and primal sensation - wanting, fearful, anguished, furious…

She thinks instantly of Will; because she can't not with those images in her head, and because she can't think clearly enough for anything else. Even through the cacophony she can still find him: down in Engineering and still calm, controlled, focused. It's like finding the eye of a storm and she aims herself to it on instinct because that's rapidly becoming all she has left.

 

*

 

He's imagined - dreamed of, longed for - that sensual, openly sexual mental caress so many times over the last few years, that when it comes he's almost not aware it's real. He's so focused on trying to get the power overridden that until she says his name he doesn't even know she's there.

"Will…"

He turns around at the sound of her voice, the last thing he expected right here and now. He should ask her to wait until they get at least this current moment's emergency dealt with, but there's just something… "Deanna. What?"

She doesn't move and yet he thinks he can see her swaying on her feet. "So many minds on this ship. All free… released…" She looks frighteningly out of it when he looks in her eyes, her gaze liquid and unfocused, and a horrible realisation hits him.

"Deanna…" Damn it, he doesn't need this on top of everything else, but then her hands are on his chest and apparently he's just not that lucky today.

She's burning up as she presses herself against him. "I can feel them all... what they want... what they feel..." Her eyes flutter closed like she can't keep them open, and he shoves down the sudden memory of her looking just like that, gloriously naked and arched against him, her hands roaming his back just like this. "It's a side of humans I never felt before…"

He touches her temple. Her skin is clammy under his fingertips, warmer even than it should be, and when he tries to reach her thoughts there's only a fog, hot and writhing, nothing focused enough for him to take hold of.

He swears silently, so vehemently that he's surprised - and worried - when she doesn't seem to hear it. It is definitely no one's lucky day today.

"Come on. I'm getting you to sickbay." He reaches down and gathers her into his arms, drawing her close against his chest. At least she's just as light as he remembers. He could still carry her halfway across the ship if he needs to.

For all the sensual need she's radiating at him, Deanna curls against him willingly and turns her face into his shoulder, and the tremor in her voice brings a lump to his throat. "Wouldn't you rather be alone with me, with me in your mind?"

He ignores that, just carries her silently to the closest turbolift while trying to ignore, as well, not only the crew all around them but the way her fingers twitch restlessly between his shoulder blades and stroke at the back of his neck. He tries his damnedest to push down those memories, too, of how she used to do that...

"You're sick," he murmurs in her ear, trying to be soothing and not just jump out of his skin at her fingernails scratching softly through the ends of his hair. "Deanna, don't. You're not well, you don't know what you're doing."

"I know what I want to do..." her voice is sultry, breathed below his ear, and he only just keeps from dropping her when she presses a kiss against the bare skin of his neck. "Isn't that all that matters?"

He adjusts his grip, trying to keep her from doing that again, and fixes his eyes on the turbolift doors in desperation. "Not now, no."

"No?" She tastes the word as if she's never heard it before; he can feel her turning it over in her head, trying to make sense of the meaning when she knows he's never, _never_ not wanted her.

The lift seems to take hours to finally arrive. To his credit, he doesn't drop her as he puts her back on her feet, although it isn't for lack of opportunity - her knees almost buckle and he doesn't dare try and let her stand on her own, as if having been in his arms she's lost the memory of how to do anything else.

"Sickbay," he says, then, "Deanna," but she reaches up and touches her fingertips to his lips.

"You know you want me." Her voice is trembling, low and throaty, but there are tears running down her face and he truly wants to be sick, knowing this isn't her at all, just the emotions of god knows how many people pulling her along on an unstoppable tide. " _I_ know you want me... you've always wanted me, you've never stopped wanting me..."

"I couldn't," he whispers, hating himself for admitting it even as it crosses his lips. The lift feels about six inches wide and hotter than the jungle. "Deanna, please don't do this."

"Will…" Suddenly there's no seduction in her - it's like a switch, from sensual to anguished in an instant, and in his head it's like the fog shifts and she's there clearly for just a moment - he can feel her trying to hang onto herself, like shouting her own name from inside a tornado. Worse, he can feel how clearly she knows that she's losing the fight. "Will, I can't-"

"Shh." He wraps his arms back around her and holds her close, kisses the top of her head and murmurs into her hair, "Shh. It's okay. I'm here."

Because of course this isn't like Shimoda, or Wes, or any other random Human catching this thing. All of them have their own inhibitions to cast off and only their own, simple and single-minded, but Deanna never gets a moment's peace from those minds even when they're not roiling oceans of emotion indulging it all, every impulse, every thought, the good and bad and ugly -

He feels the moment she slips under, just as the lift stops: not exactly unconscious, but swallowed up by that fog of raw, released feeling, and he strains to hear her thoughts but it's like shouting into a gale, the effort just ripped apart by the storm.

He takes her by both wrists and gently guides her arms around his neck again, pressing her palms against his uniform. She's at least with him enough to understand that and hold on as he lifts her off her feet again.

The main sickbay is thankfully empty of anyone to see how tenderly he lays her down on the closest bed; the way his hand lingers against the bare skin of her wrist in the hope that it'll help his _it's okay, imzadi, it'll be okay, just hold on_ make it through; the way he has to drag himself away from her even to find someone who can help.

He should have known that touching her would get him infected. He did know - he just didn't think, because there wasn't any point when it wouldn't change his choices. He just hopes to hell, as he leaves her, that he can manage to take along some of that control she taught him, because it might be the only thing that gets any of them out of this alive.

 

*

 

He gets as far as the turbolift and "Engineering," is barely past his lips before he feels her wake up again - sudden and violent as if jerking out of a nightmare.

_Will!_

He's blessedly relieved to still be alone. He tries to breathe slowly the way she taught him, too; to reach out, careful, careful, steady-

Deanna's feelings flood through his mind in a tidal roar, a shocking overload of sensation that almost sends him reeling to his knees. He stumbles, grabs for the side of the lift - for just a few seconds that feel like days he's lost, unable to find rational thought in the middle of this maelstrom of _love/pain/passion/anger/fear/hating/laughter/loss/want/needneeditto_ stop _makethemstop I can't keep them out so many minds, so many, too_ many _I don't know who I am-_

He sucks in a harsh breath. _Easy. Shh. Easy._ He's gonna have one hell of a headache when this is over, if they get through it. _Shh, you have to hold on. We'll find the answer. You just have to hold on, okay?_

He's not even sure she hears him. _It's so much… in my mind, everything they_ feel _, everything they want... all the things they're doing..._ _I feel like I'm losing myself..._

Selfish as it is, he doesn't want to think about the implications of that. He doesn't want to know how many things she's feeling right now that she isn't anywhere close to consenting to. He doesn't want to be thinking the word he's thinking, not about Deanna, oh god, please, especially not about Deanna -

_Deanna. Imzadi._ He closes his eyes against the raw pain, not sure if he even remembers how to do what he instinctively wants to do: how to draw all the strength he can spare - hell, all the strength he can find - into the ever-widening web of connections between his mind and hers.

_Try and hold on,_ he thinks to her, feeling about as helpless as he's ever been in his life. _Doctor Crusher will find something to help you. It won't be much longer, I promise. I promise._

Mercifully, she's unconscious again before he reaches Engineering.

*

 

"This will take slightly more time than we have, sir," Data says, and he slumps against the console as he feels the fight finally leave him.

They're going to die, everyone on this ship, and there's nothing he can do about it.

He covers his mouth with one hand, trying to stem the sick feeling, and it comes away clammy with a thin sheen of sweat.

Horror rises up in his throat like bile. "Oh, damn it, no, I can't afford to get this…"

Everything starts to go grey around the edges of his vision. He suddenly, desperately, oh so privately and painfully wants Deanna beside him, back to herself and in his mind, because if he could only hold it together for a few more minutes -

 

*

 

The first thing she notices, when she wakes up, is the quiet.

"Mm." Blissful, _blissful_ quiet in her head, even if it does hiss like static between her ears when she moves her head and experiments with taking in a breath.

"Hey."

She smiles, without even needing to open her eyes. "Will."

He's smiling back at her - she can feel it as he takes her hand. "How're you feeling?"

"It's _quiet_." She's quite aware that she probably still sounds intoxicated, she's so happy. Will chuckles.

"That it is."

She opens her eyes. She's in sickbay, lying on a biobed, and he's alone beside her on a chair with his back to a wall. He looks tired, but she can feel the relief vibrating off him.

"Hi."

"Hi." He smiles again. "Thanks for waking up. I was getting a little worried."

"Doctor Crusher is a perfectly good physician," she reminds him, smiling wider.

"I know."

"But you still worried."

"I always worry. It's a first officer's job."

She laughs under her breath. It comes out shaky, still. "Oh, is that all."    

"No." He squeezes her hand gently. "That's not all. You know that."

She means to pull his hand to her lips, but the tug is enough to make him hop up onto the bed beside her instead. He leans down and kisses her forehead.

Exhaustion sweeps over her, and she smiles up at him as her eyes fall closed again. _Will. Thank you._

 

*

 

He's not sure she should be on duty so soon out of sickbay, but he's also keenly aware that even the Captain - probably even Crusher - won't fully grasp why, and if Deanna isn't going to have that conversation with anyone then he's sure as hell not going to do it for her.

"Counselor." The Captain nods to greet her as she comes down the ramp towards them. "You're quite recovered, I hope?"

Deanna nods in return, and he's sure to anyone else it's as if she's never been out of control at all. "Yes, sir."

"I understand you've had quite a time of it while we've all been... enjoying ourselves."

Perhaps not everyone else, then. The Captain may not understand the intricacies of Betazoid empathy, but the man is already good at filling some of those gaps.

"It was a little overwhelming, sir," Deanna says. It's the understatement of the mission, but at least she's only a little reticent to admit it.

"Well." Picard keeps his voice low and private, and from only a step away, Will can feel Deanna's gratitude for that as if it's a physical thing. "Should you feel the need, you are to return to your quarters for the rest of the shift, is that clear?"

A warm smile touches Deanna's lips. "Yes sir."

She meets his eyes - he's already watching her, he can't help it - as she settles back into her chair; a glance that's already become so familiar. Her voice is tired but clear and gentle in his head.

_I really am fine, Will._

_I know._

_Liar._ It's affection, not accusation in her tone, and Picard says something about temptation but he's already tempted beyond rescue and listening instead to the reassuring sense of her mind where it touches his, calm and clear like a smooth sea after the storm's passed.

She looks away with that smile back at the corner of her lips. _We should listen to him, you know._

He swallows and tries not to think about the weight of her in his arms or her fingers in his hair, because she's right. They should.

It would be easier if he didn't know, with complete certainty, that she's not convinced either.

 

**


End file.
